Keto Flu Remedies: Fastest Ways to Stop Keto Flu [E14]

Keto Flu Remedies for Brain Fog, Dizziness, Headaches, & Cramps [E14] transcript powered by Sonix—the best audio to text transcription service

Keto Flu Remedies for Brain Fog, Dizziness, Headaches, & Cramps [E14] was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2020.

Hey there, Tasha here. Welcome back. The New Year has brought lots of new listeners and loads of people who are new to keto and still learning how to navigate the ins and outs of this dietary pattern. So if you're new here, I would love to encourage you to browse through some of the older episodes. They aren't old, old. Don't get me wrong. This podcast is still pretty new itself, but some of the first episodes dived into the hows and whys of getting started on keto. Episode 1, for example, is called "The Easiest Way to Start Keto." And that's definitely going to set you up to take the first step. I have loads of other resources available on my web site Ketogasm dot com, including my new book, Keto: A Woman's Guide and Cookbook. That was just released a couple of weeks ago. And this is a great, great book for all women do and keto. Newbie's, old pros, even coaches interested in fine-tuning keto for their female clients, the whole bunch. So definitely be sure to check that out when you get an opportunity. And for everyone else, again, thank you for listening and for your huge, huge support with the book. Watch. Your pre-orders and reviews have been such a big help in getting the book out there. As a relatively new author, these are the types of things that drive the success of a book.

So thank you again for those of you who have popped over to leave a review on Amazon. And if you haven't had the chance to do that yet, I would really appreciate it if you could just take a quick second, leave a review, and let me know what your favorite part of the book is so far or what you're looking forward to learning the most. Even if it wasn't purchased on Amazon, the reviews there are hugely helpful in making sure the book gets any kind of attention.

Now today I'm talking all about keto flu and what to do. And I want to make sure to talk about it now, while there are lots of new listeners and people starting out with carb restriction. Because keto flu is going to hit you the hardest when you're just starting out. And I'm calling it, quote unquote, "keto flu," but it's not influenza. You don't get infected with a virus when you take on a low carb diet. So what's actually going on? The symptoms of the keto flu include brain fog, haziness, sluggishness, and lack of energy. For starters. Then we have dizziness, lightheadedness headaches, leg cramps, heart palpitations. All of these other things that kind of get lumped in there as well. So there's a whole lot going on with the keto flu. There's a whole list of symptoms that get tossed together and the keto flu bucket.

And we know it's not really the flu. It just gets described that way because people feel like total garbage. Right. Just like they had the flu. But what's really going on are a couple things simultaneously. So let's look at those and figure out what the heck to do about it. Not being fat adapted yet is a big driver of keto flu. All right. When you're first restricting carbs in your diet, your body burns through its stored carbs in your muscle and liver, your glycogen stores. And once that glycogen has been depleted, your body's forced to rely on other fuel sources. Right. So the metabolic pathways that have been routinely running day in, day out on your high carb diet, those are interrupted and your body's forced to take an alternate route. Right. So your body starts producing ketones and it starts making its own sugar via gluconeogenesis to cover its needs. OK, I'm not going to go too in-depth. Most of you don't want the nitty gritty science if I start talking about the Krebs cycle, your eyes are going to glaze over. You're gonna turn me off, right? So I'm just gonna give you the gist about what happens when you get into ketosis. You cut out carbs, your body starts producing only the amount of carbs it needs to fuel certain cells from within, inside and it ramps up keto production for fuel as well.

Your body is smart and it has all of these adaptive mechanisms. So when we take carbs away, it has its own built in way of adjusting to the change. And this change represents a change in metabolic state. Our bodies handle it beautifully, shifting to new metabolic pathways to burn fat for fuel. Our new primary energy source and so on and so forth. Right. But the problem that we often see during this initial shift in metabolism is that our body was adapted to high carb intake. So when we make the shift, all of the enzymes required to facilitate oxidation of carbs were in demand. But now the enzymes required to facilitate the oxidation of fat and amino acids are in demand. And then the enzymes also required for gluconeogenesis are in demand. In other words, when we first start out with keto, all the chemical reactions that happen in our body to burn carbs for energy are better supported than the chemical reactions that happen in our body to burn fat and protein for energy. That's really just the gist of it. When we get started, our bodies are better sugar burners than fat burners. OK, so what does our body do when it's still used to sugar burning mode, it's not a good fat burner yet, and the sugar supply has been completely cut off? It adapts.

OK, so our body adapts and becomes better at burning fats. The demand for fat burning support is there now, so the body adapts and adjusts. And over time your body is efficiently burning fat for fuel. I like to think of the metabolism in this context, like a traffic detour. You're used to driving your commute every day. You know how much gas you need, how much time it takes to get there. Traffic hold ups, every little detail of your commute, right? So much so that you're often driving back and forth to your job on autopilot. Right. But one day there's a massive road construction. Let's say the bridge was completely shut down and you have a detour. But as you drive through, it's unfamiliar and when you first navigate it, it's not very efficient. But once it's been shut down for a week, two weeks or longer, you become more efficient using that detour route. That's similar to the way our metabolic pathways are operating during the shift to nutritional ketosis. But in those first few days, even weeks of starting a very low carb ketogenic diet, that brain fog can feel pretty bad. It can be like you're moving in slow motion. The world's going at a normal pace and your head can't catch up and you're just lacking energy. Your body's moving faster than your mind and it's not very fun. And that's because your body's just not efficient at burning fat for fuel just yet.

Luckily, there are a couple things to do about the brain fog and lack of energy when you first get started with keto. The best thing to do in this scenario is to be patient and stay the course because it does take time. So don't give up right away. The next best thing, aside from just waiting it out, is to support your body with MCTs. MCTs are medium chain triglycerides, which are metabolized in a completely different way than long chain triglycerides, and that's the fat that's usually found in your diet. OK, they don't really have to go through the same detour route so they aren't susceptible to clunky, inefficient metabolism and can provide quick fat for energy. They're digested and metabolized much, much faster and can help with the keto brain fog or low energy scenarios that occur when you make the switch to keto. They have other uses too, but this is not a bad way to get started with MCTs. And you can find these in coconut oil naturally or you can purchase some oil or supplements and try those. So that's one way. And the other thing that you may want to consider is something that I can't even believe that I am including in my list of suggestions for you guys, because if you have known me for a while, I have been very anti

exogenous ketones. But I want to point out a few things before I recommend them for using it for brain fog or energy boosting purposes. It's important to know that exogenous ketones don't make you skinny. Exogenous ketones do not make you skinny. Okay, so if someone is selling you exogenous ketones with the false promise that you are going to get skinny regardless of whatever you're eating and that you're going to magically be able to cheat on your diet and eat whatever you want and do all of these things and still be in ketosis, that's false. Okay. Ketones are not the driving force behind weight loss. OK, we've talked about this at length and you guys know why. OK. Calorie deficit still required on keto or any other dietary pattern, if you want to lose body fat. OK, so if people are trying to sell you keto on supplements as a way to get skinny or eat whatever you want, whatever their sales tactics include, that is not their actual purpose. OK, so don't fall for the MLM marketing tactics. That's not what they're for! They have therapeutic uses. They may be a good option for athletic support. And finally, they do offer a quick fuel source for sluggishness, lack of energy and brain fog that occurs during that initial phase of fat adaptation. OK, so for brain fog, low energy and sluggishness during this time.

Think patience, time, MCTs, and maybe even exogenous ketones. I usually tell people exhaustion has ketones are expensive pee, because you're paying a premium price for ketones that just spill out into your urine if your body doesn't have a need to burn them and your body produces ketones on its own as long as you're restricting carbs. OK, so you don't need to pay for ketones. But in this context, I think they may offer value to people. I can talk more about this in another episode. It will probably be a rant episode, but let me know if you guys think it'll be helpful, OK?

Now what about all the other symptoms you might be experiencing when you first cut out carbs? Are you light headed? Are you dizzy? Are you nauseous? Do you have diarrhea? Are you shaky? Do you have really bad cramps or feel kind of blue? This isn't the actual flu either, but it is likely an electrolyte imbalance usually related to salt and potassium. Okay. Our typical standard American diet or even any westernised dietary pattern is typically full of high sodium, low potassium foods which causes us to retain quite a bit of excess sodium. Because sodium and potassium are in this kind of balancing game with each other where if we're eating high sodium, if we increased our potassium and take that would kind of balance it out.

Okay. It's like a teeter totter. But as we shift into ketosis, our bodies dump sodium. Insulin drops causing the kidneys to release sodium. And we also dump buckets of water as our glycogen is depleted with carb restriction. And with sodium quickly released, this triggers the release of potassium to balance it all out and with all the extra water being shed, this flushes out water soluble vitamins and minerals at a much quicker pace than what our body is actually accustomed to. So coming from a western diet to keto, the body goes quickly from excess sodium retention to being completely depleted of sodium. And I know that many of us are told to limit salt or limit sodium intake because we are in excess when we're eating our high carb westernised diets. But with the lower insulin levels and this altered sodium metabolism, it is important to include sodium in a ketogenic diet. And luckily that is a pretty simple fix, right? Get salt in your diet: broth stocks, salty brines. If you just started keto and you were wondering "what's the deal with people drinking pickle juice?" This is why. We're expelling more salt than usual with our very low carb intake. So having salt, drinking sole water, drinking electrolyte beverages like sugar free sports drinks, Powerade, Gatorade, those kind of things, if they're sugar free, you can have them on a keto diet and they're high in salt.

OK, so even supplements like LMNT can be really helpful. So salt or more importantly, sodium can help balance those symptoms. But you also want to ensure potassium intake is adequate because remember, as all that salt was depleted or all the sodium was depleted, the potassium followed quickly after and when potassium is depleted, this causes cramps, muscle weakness, irregular heartbeat, constipation. And potassium, you want to try to get most of that from your food. If you opt for high potassium keto foods, you'll probably get enough. OK. You don't really need to supplement here, but you can if it's warranted. ANd if all of that stuff is approved by your doctor. OK. High potassium foods that support ketosis include avocados, fish, meat, dark leafy greens, nuts and mushrooms. There's also no salt or light salt products, and they're usually about half sodium, half potassium. So those are also popular among keto dieters. But I just really want to caution you to be careful if you're considering a potassium supplement of any kind, even the salts. OK. Even light salt, because there are a lot of very common health conditions that do not tolerate potassium supplementation well. Where even though in most diets, a high potassium intake is a wonderful thing, that high potassium intake is not a good thing in these people. So any anybody with kidney conditions, some diabetic patients don't tolerate tolerate it well.

And your medical provider is going to help you figure that out, OK. this is informational purposes only. You guys know I'm not a doctor. And more importantly, I'm not your doctor or health care practitioner. So I do hope if you're on a journey towards better health, you have someone on your medical team in your corner working with you. In addition to sodium and potassium, when you're working on managing your electrolytes, magnesium is also helpful. It helps support energy production and lots of cellular processes, but it's really important because it helps the cells uptake potassium. So increasing your magnesium intake will also help your body make use of the potassium that you're putting in it. OK, magnesium supplementation is a great idea if you suspect that you have low potassium or even if you're just doing keto. Now, not a ton of keto foods are really high in magnesium. Frankly, we don't have a lot of options here. We can get some from leafy greens, seaweed, nuts, seeds, avocado, fatty fish, tofu, coffee, dairy and dark chocolate. But in general, most people doing keto choose to supplement with magnesium and a lot of women especially are already deficient in magnesium before even getting started on keto. So it is a good one to consider too. Low magnesium tends to show up as headaches, migraines, constipation, anxiety, irritability, depression, mood disorders, PMS, fatigue, and difficulty sleeping.

And it is involved in a ton of processes in your body. So it can really make a difference if you're low and you supplement and you feel a lot better afterwards. OK. So if anything, any of these symptoms sound familiar, magnesium may be something to look at. Now, if you do look for a magnesium supplement, I want you to opt for something with a better bioavailability like magnesium glycinate, magnesium citrate, something like that. Magnesium oxide is really common in multi-vitamins and supplements, but it doesn't have great bioavailability. So for electrolyte imbalance related keto flu symptoms think sodium, salt, potassium, high potassium foods and magnesium in your foods and possibly supplementation. I hope that was really helpful for you guys. I just want to make sure you guys feel as good as possible as you're getting started on your keto journey, but be sure to manage your electrolytes as you go along. OK. This is an ongoing thing. So not just from the get go. You're going to want to feel your best long term. So consider this as you move forward and make it past that brain fog stage and you become fat adapted. You still need to manage your electrolytes. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. I will see you next week.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Ketogasm podcast. You are awesome. I really hope the show's added value to your keto journey. Making big changes to your eating habits can be a little tricky, but if you're taking the time to listen and learn about keto, you're well on your way. You got this. Be sure to visit Ketogasm dot com for the show notes with full transcripts, references and resources to help you out, including a totally free course called Hello keto. It's helped over seventy five thousand people start keto with confidence. I'll see you in the next episode by.

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